The dim and flaring lamps
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: Mansion House on the Fourth of July. Henry Hopkins has never seen fireworks.


"Do you think these boys will ever enjoy fireworks again? I found Private Bartlett in a corner with the thunder yesterday evening and Corporal Calloway claps his hands over his ears when the crockery clatters on a cart," Mary said. They were sitting on the veranda of Mansion House in twilight. It was Independence Day. She'd tried to make it festive for the sick boys, had managed to unearth some bunting and hang it in the main ward with Samuel Diggs's help. Henry Hopkins had led a special service, substituting a stirring speech and Mrs. Howe's song for his more usual meditative sermon and preferred hymns.

There hadn't been enough soft fruit to make pies and she had to husband the dried apples most carefully. Matron had grudgingly given her an extra measure of sugar and flour so she could make a cake; there was little to decorate it with until Emma Green surprised her with the suggestion of flower petals. They'd spent a warm half-hour in the Mansion House garden stripping red and white roses and Emma had managed to find a few bachelor's buttons at the edge of a border. The cake had been the triumph of the day, even short a few eggs. The thin icing had been covered entirely in red, white and the little bit of blue they'd eked out from the handful of cornflowers. How the boys had clapped and cheered when she brought it out to be cut! Somehow, she'd managed to serve every man able to eat a slice of the cake and the officers had all graciously taken their cue from Jed and waved her away after Hale devoured his own piece. She'd been put out enough that she'd gloried in the crumbs left in Hale's beard, a most obvious sign of his gluttony.

"Ah, I don't know. Some of them seem curiously unaffected by it all, but the injuries to their minds… Perhaps the resolution will be enough to heal them, a kind of cautery," Jed replied. He was nursing a lukewarm tumbler of ginger switchel and staring out into the evening sky. The light was shifting moment to moment, like the inside of an oyster shell now. He seemed tired tonight and had spent a few hours alone in his room while she had worked to arrange the meager celebration. The smile he had given her when he saw the cake was only half of what she might have expected and she could tell he was making an effort.

"You don't quite sound yourself," Mary remarked. She wished it would cool off a little more quickly as it would have in New Hampshire. Here the heat of the day lingered like a quilt she could not throw off during a fever and her braided hair was heavy at her neck.

At home, she would have worn a light muslin on the 4th, perhaps embroidered with bluebells or roses or brightened by a long red sash but today she was still buttoned up in a serviceable calico and she hadn't been able to bear adding anything else at the neck, not even a slender ribbon. She'd tucked two red roses at the waist of her apron but they had wilted and she'd set them down beside her own glass of switchel.

"Some days, I'm not sure who I am anymore. Does that surprise you? That I should admit it?" Jed replied. Could she answer him truly? Perhaps—he was not regarding her with that intent, searching look he seemed to only use with her but was gazing out into the garden still. The flowers gave off their scent so generously in the warmth, a compensation for the sweat at her throat and collecting between her breasts. She found herself so much more aware of her body when she was near him, where her hands lay, the breath as it left her lungs and how eagerly she sought its return, the strength in her hips and the sensitive glory of her skin.

"No. Should it?" she put to him. She would have to tread carefully if she wished to help him avoid the slough of melancholy he was poised upon.

"You always seem so certain, so confident—your virtue, your faith, you carry them so easily," Jed said. She heard the admiration mixed with envy, the echo of the boy he used to be on a Maryland plantation, struggling to make sense of the world around him.

"I suppose it may seem that way. I don't know anyone who is certain, unless he is a fool. Ever since I was a little girl, to try and understand who I was, who I was to be, what was allowed—always a struggle. I was lucky in my mother, I think, she saw what I saw and did, guided me so gently. But now, with the War, it is so much more clear to me… we are here to question, don't you think? To question and observe and learn? And to strive to make things better," she replied. She could see a star, maybe two, and the moon fat-bellied among the trees, his profile defined even in the dimming light. Some things needed no improvement, only wonder.

"Oh, Mary, how you school me!" Jed said, rueful now. She could hear him shake his head in the tone of his voice and she smiled in satisfaction.

"And I know you're looking at me with that indulgent glance that says you have wrested me from another sulk," he said, crossing his legs at the ankle. She saw his hand stroke the wet side of the switchel glass and she felt such a thrill; the sudden heat collected, was driven down from among the chambers of her heart, through her belly. She inhaled, audibly, and she saw how he tried to look at her but the shadows had fallen and there was no lamp lit beside her, no moon behind.

"I only wonder, and today even more, will it be worth it? The War, what might we lose?" he said, his tone careful now, the most correct he could be. There was none of the usual humor that added a lilt to his voice. And now she felt herself, everything that made her Mary, leaning toward him, a man who suffered deeply over his country's schism but also the rift in his own life. How many contradictions he contained! And how she longed for him, even as she knew she might break him. She could not be broken by it, she had already lost too much and had still found her faith sustained her—whatever would come of them, she might bear it but not him, not Jedediah. She must be very cautious and attentive if she loved him.

"But what we shall gain, oh, that is most dear—can't you see? What value does our nation have if we destroy its foundation with iniquity and injustice? Why then would this experiment be anything more than… a bit of cleverness, a way to escape paying a tax we don't care for, a drawing room discussion for rich men? You told me once how you chose, how you fought for the Union and I think, we must have integrity if we are to come together," she paused, not afraid she had said too much but unsure if he cared for her bluestocking's philosophy.

"It is worth the sacrifice, Jedediah, it must be, for it is all that we are," she added, a little more quietly. She was flushed now, she knew, and a little breeze had loosened the hair swept back from her face. She lifted a hand to brush back an errant curl and felt Jed catch her hand in his.

"'Most dear,' yes, Mary, I think you must be right, I shall need to remember," Jed said, his voice low, but with a vibrant energy, convinced even as she found herself unsteady where she sat. Her hand in his, his thumb stroking the tender center of her palm, grazing her wrist—she felt as if she held a lit firework and must cast it from her, so she did not burn. But the sky would hold it, a brilliant chrysanthemum, silver and gold and it would be reflected in both their eyes.

Jed dropped her hand, but not suddenly; she could feel what it cost him to let her go. Henry Hopkins had drawn up the chair on her other side while her attention had been… diverted. Henry was such a kind man and also knew a little of what yearning felt like so he did not speak at once but let a moment pass, and then another, before he began.

"Nurse Mary, Dr. Foster. It's been quite a day, hasn't it? I think the boys are settled now, all out patriots dreaming, perhaps of this—a quiet evening, companionship among countrymen. I can't imagine anything better but our celebrations at home were simple ones. You've both seen fireworks, haven't you? Tell me again, why are they better than these fireflies," Henry asked, gesturing at the darkened garden sparkling before them. The question was easy to answer and impossible at once. Mary had seen fireflies and she had seen fireworks and they were not be compared. So she stayed quiet and let Jed start talking, filling the night with radiance.


End file.
